Closure
by HollyDB
Summary: Dreams that felt like something more often were. (SPOILERS: The Force Awakens)


A great many things had been made clearer to her in the years since she discovered her parentage. One of those things was that the dreams that felt like something more often were. Times when she felt the bonds to her brother, experienced the pain of her son. Felt the pull of the dark, how it whispered and lied. The same tears in the Force that had started to unravel her family, tiny threads at first before stretching until the divide was too be wide to be bridged.

Tonight, Leia had felt particularly sensitive. Her bones still rattled from the quakes that had seized her when it had happened. The tears she'd shed after had been bitter and private. Han was too big a man to be ever really gone. Truthfully, Leia had always assumed he would live forever. After all, the man's penchant for escaping death was the thing of legend.

It did and didn't surprise her when she felt him in that place beyond. In the world that was and wasn't a dream.

"You're a bad coin, you know," she said. A hard pang hit her chest—the sort she might have been prone to ignore once upon a time. But pain made her stronger, she'd found, and kept her human.

"Don't look at me. I'm pretty sure you brought me here." He made a show of glancing around the gray space of her dream world as though he were as bewildered as she was. And perhaps he was—Han had embraced the mystical, but that didn't mean he'd been ready to become a part of it.

Leia's lips twitched. "I guess I wasn't ready to say goodbye."

Han met her gaze, his own reflecting the bittersweet shine she'd become accustomed to over the last few years. "So that part happened," he said. "Ben…"

"Father issues seem to run in our family." She swallowed, then inhaled. "I'm sorry, Han."

"I think we all are."

"I'd hoped…"

"Yeah," he replied, nodding. "We both did." He paused. "Don't give up on him."

"I never will. I can't." She paused again, that pang in her chest growing. There were so many things she'd hoped she'd get to tell Han one day—an uncategorized list she'd assumed she'd have the chance to explore. Pain ignored still hurt. If anything, time only made the ache worse.

"I never gave up on us, either," she heard herself say. "For what it's worth…I thought we'd have time."

He favored her with that heartbreaking smile she'd fallen in love with a lifetime ago. "I don't think there'd ever be enough time." Han looked down. "I couldn't reach him. I tried. But…I think you might. You were always better at that than me."

"Only took you dying to admit it."

And that was it. The moment, the one she'd tried to avoid, somehow without realizing it. The one she dreaded because it made everything real. It meant that when she awoke, Han would really be gone. That her son, her Ben, was even farther from her than she'd thought. That the sacrifices made had been for naught. She had her title, but her family had been ripped apart. The man she loved, dead. The son she loved, gone. The brother she loved…

When Leia looked up again, the hole in her chest grew larger. Han was giving her a look she knew well. A look that had haunted her dreams, even long after she had put the Hutt Palace behind her. In a blink, she was back in that terrible chamber, staring at him for what they'd both thought might be the last time.

And like then, she couldn't keep it inside. "Han… I hope you know. No matter what happened, I—"

"I know," he said.

"You do?"

"Yeah." He paused. "Do you?"

She didn't know how he did it. How, even in death, he could disarm her, charm her without trying. The words themselves were those that had been largely unneeded over the years, because there had never been any question. They had simply known.

That was the way they loved.

"Yes," she said. "I know too. I've always known."

Han smiled at her, then. A true smile—the kind that eroded years off a man, even a ghost.

And after she awoke, Leia wondered if that might be the answer. The thing that could save their son. The fact that whatever had happened, Ben was loved. There had been no condemnation in Han's eyes. Nothing but sorrow for what he hadn't been able to do, and for what he'd left behind. And the relief that after everything, he'd still been loved.

If she could give Han peace in death, perhaps there was a chance still that she could do the same for Ben in life.

As long as there was hope…

Until then, Leia could live with the knowledge that Han hadn't died alone.

She'd been there with him, and a part of her always would be.


End file.
